LEILA FADEL, HOST:
A second man has been identified in the bombing of a fertility clinic last month in Palm Springs, about a hundred miles east of Los Angeles. Authorities arrested him late Tuesday and say he supplied large amounts of chemicals that were used by the FBI's primary suspect to make explosives. From member station KVCR in San Bernardino, Madison Aument reports.
MADISON AUMENT, BYLINE: The Department of Justice alleges Daniel Park of the Seattle area shipped some 270 pounds of ammonium nitrate to Guy Edward Bartkus, who later drove a car containing a bomb to the clinic and detonated it in what the FBI considers an act of terrorism. Bartkus died in the explosion. Bill Essayli, who's the U.S. attorney for California's Central District, says investigators found lab equipment and bomb ingredients at Bartkus' house in 29 Palms, about 50 miles northeast of Palm Springs.
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BILL ESSAYLI: Park spent approximately two weeks visiting Bartkus' residence in 29 Palms in late January and early February of this year, spending time together, running experiments in Bartkus' garage.
AUMENT: The FBI declined to say how the two men knew each other during a news conference on Wednesday. Park is charged with providing material support to a terrorist and could face up to 15 years in prison. Essayli says that Park, an American citizen, was not in Palm Springs at the time of the explosion and fled to Poland days later. He didn't say why Park chose that country as his destination. Essayli says Park, who's 32, was deported by Polish authorities and arrested late Tuesday at JFK Airport in New York City. Akil Davis, who's with the FBI, says Park and Bartkus shared fringe ideologies.
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AKIL DAVIS: They don't believe that people should exist. So there's tons of terminology out there - antinatalism, promortalism, nihilism. These all are intertwined.
AUMENT: Davis says a search of Park's home in Seattle found instructions to make an explosive similar to the one used by Timothy McVeigh in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. He says they believe Park was trying to recruit others in online forums. Park appeared before a federal judge in New York City on Wednesday and is being detained without bail. A spokesperson for Essayli says Park will be moved to California in the coming weeks. Efforts to find an attorney for Park were unsuccessful. Meanwhile, the doctor who runs the fertility clinic that was destroyed said all the embryos survived the attack, and they will rebuild.
For NPR News, I'm Madison Aument in San Bernardino. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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